












* 4o -» 






^ v .^i:.X a A^n:.^ ^,:a-.V 






4. *. * S 



• . 5 



'. <W 















**. 



& • • 


















* . &_ J* -• *p* a1> *j 









»°-v 



£ /\ •«! 



r o>. •."•• .« 



.'• .►* 



.'. > 







*0 



c> *<TV.' VV 









<, " 



% ■■:' 









P » ^ 3 



Ao. 



V *>* *- • 






•■i'. *> 




% $> ; >y^ ++. <£ & h*. ^. & 






%S V : 









o^ •♦J^*. 












»! 







^■Mi 



sxrt 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY 

BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE 

BOYLSTON MEDICAL SOCIETY 

(of harvard medical school). 



BY 

C. WESSELHCEFT, M. D., 

PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGY AND THERAPEUTICS OF BOSTON 
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE. 






3 



BOSTON: 
OTIS CLAPP & SON. 

1885. 






4 



«5\ 



PRESS OF RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



The following pages contain a revised and corrected 
edition of the " Lecture on Homoeopathy," etc., from 
the May and June numbers of the New-England 
Medical Gazette. The delay in the publication of 
this separate edition is a matter of regret, but is due 
to the illness of the author, to which also are to be 
attributed the non-correction of various errors con- 
tained in this article as printed in the Gazette. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Early in March the writer received a very polite invita- 
tion, from Drs. H. I. Bowditch and V. Y. Bowditch, "to 
answer some questions concerning homoeopathy " to the 
members of the Boylston Medical Society, consisting of the 
advanced students of the Harvard Medical School. The 
proposal was gladly accepted ; and it was arranged that each 
member of the class should write down a certain number of 
questions, from which the secretary of the society then made 
a selection, consisting of fourteen questions, the answers to 
which form the subject of the following paper. After listen- 
ing to it, there followed a discussion of the subject by Dr. 
D. Hunt, and this was followed by questions concerning 
homoeopathy on the part of the members. These questions 
and remarks were all to the point, intelligent and courteous, 
as I hope the unpremeditated answers were likewise. 

As a matter of course, this paper is published with the 
hope, on the part of the author, that his treatment of the 
subject in so short a space may meet the approval of homoe- 
opathists, whose views, he trusts, were represented as fairly as 
the brevity of the allotted time and space would allow. 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 



Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Boylston Medical 
Society, — When accepting your generous invitation to an- 
swer some questions concerning homoeopathy, I did so with 
no ordinary sense of gratification. This I hope you will 
share with me when you call to mind that this meeting is an 
historical event, for it is the first time in medical history that 
a homceopathist has had the opportunity, courteously ex- 
tended, of explaining the principles of his own to members 
of the opposite school. 

It may not lie within my ability to do full justice to the 
questions you have asked, although they are plain and fair, 
and carry with them the assurance of an honest desire for 
information concerning a subject of doubt to you. 

Your list contains no less than fourteen questions. How- 
ever much abbreviated, the answers will tax your time and 
patience : mine are at your disposal. 

i. Please give a brief statement of the essential doctrines 
of homoeopathy, showing wherein it differs from the regular 
school. 

In order to arrive at an understanding of the doctrines of 
homoeopathy, in order to prepare our minds for a calm re- 
ception of statements of principles and methods with which 
we are either entirely unfamiliar, or regarding which we had 



8 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

been sceptical, it is well to remember the times and con- 
ditions, not only in reference to medicine, but history in 
general. 

The origin of homoeopathy, as first announced by Samuel 
Hahnemann, falls in the last years of the last century, — 
about 1 796. You will remember that this was soon after the 
end of the famous rebellion which made this country free ; it 
was the actual time of the French Revolution. Great political 
changes of a progressive kind extended their influence over 
Germany. Such times throw the masses into a state of fer- 
ment, and engender thought in more capable minds, in each 
according to its predilections. Philosophers, statesmen, 
poets, arise, and in peaceful sciences, like medicine, new 
ideas crowd upon old ones. 

As in politics, so in medicine, a revolutionary spirit was 
rife. This was a hundred years ago. If I sketch it briefly, 
in somewhat flagrant colors, I beg you will not consider it as 
an aggression against improved medical practice of our time. 
You know that diseases were treated then very differently 
from present usages. When I mention the words " bleed- 
ing," " purging," " blistering," and " mercury," I have named 
certain measures which may have been used moderately by 
some, but to excess by the majority, and advocated by lead- 
ing minds. The idea that congestion — though this idea 
bears in it the germ of a pathological truth — was the source 
of all disease, because autopsies showed the blood to have 
collected and often clotted in various parts of the body, led 
to the universal tendency, habit, and dogma, that the blood 
must he got rid of, at all hazards (Broussais, Rasori). The 
cold, livid, half-dead cholera patient, as well as the pneu- 
monic patient, with hot and turgid skin and bounding pulse, 
was bled. That is, the blood of the latter flowed freely 
enough ; that of the sufferer from cholera did not, and phy- 
sicians were sure that they could cure cholera if they could 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 9 

only make the blood run from the vein during life, because 
after death they found it collected in one spot. 

Purging was not done as now, nor with the precautions of 
to-day •. it was made a substitute for bleeding (v. Storck) . 
Even the best minds could not divest themselves of the idea 
that disease was caused by some undefined noxious sub- 
stance {mate7'ia peccans) which could be got rid of only by 
material evacuations, such as purging and bleeding, gener- 
ally preceded by emesis if possible. Do not confound the 
temperate use of these means of to-day with the usages 
of a century ago, which, like the excessive employment of 
mercurials, and an unbridled,, lawless habit of compound- 
ing multifarious drugs, have now been superseded by better 
practices. 

The contrast between now and then is great. Those 
methods were old, and firmly rooted in the minds of phy- 
sicians and the laity, who rather dreaded than loved them. 
A change of practice had been foreshadowed in the history 
of medicine : it had to come. If one had not inaugurated 
it, another would have done so. Though it does not follow 
that the change which began to appear must have been to 
what is called homoeopathy, nevertheless that change which 
was to come would have assuredly been characterized by 
various features which are pectdiar to homoeopathy. 

Now, as this system of practice was the form in which a 
change in the practice of medicine did come, we will not 
trouble our heads about what might have or should have 
been ; but we will look at what we have got before us, for 
"it will not down." 

As you do not desire a digest of the history of medicine, 
as time is too short, you will also kindly content yourselves 
with a very concise statement of the 9 essential doctrines " 
of homoeopathy. Their simple recital will, as your question 
requires, give you evidence that they are the counterpart of 



10 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

the doctrines and medical usages of the last century, and 
still widely different from, if not antagonistic to, the allceo- 
pathic practice of to-day. 

As your questions do not imply a critical analysis of the 
schools, or methods of practice in question, you will be con- 
tented with a statement of doctrines, in order that you may 
draw comparisons, and form your own conclusions. 

When you are told, for example, that homoeopathy seeks 
after positive knowledge of disease, in place of theoretical 
knowledge of pathological processes, you will be perplexed 
by the implied inference that traditional medicine possessed 
no positive knowledge of disease. The direct omission of 
the proof of the assertion will not be misinterpreted or mis- 
understood if I succeed in answering fairly the question as 
relating to homoeopathy. 

Homoeopathy, then, demands actual, positive knowledge 
of disease. What does that mean? It means, that, in re- 
gard to disease, we should make clinical use of only such 
facts, characteristics, or symptoms, as we can, with our aided 
or unaided senses, grasp and accept as facts without doubt 
or cavil ; whether such disease be a mere pustule on the 
skin, or a case of epilepsy, or some other complicated lesion. 
When we look at the subject closely, there are as many 
knotty problems to be solved in the instance of the pustule 
as there are in that of the more serious disease. The path- 
ology of either will teem with theoretical points as to the 
cause and the relation of histological elements involved. 
Homoeopathy simply asks, What do we perceive and know ? 
We perceive and know, for instance, that the pustule is red ; 
that it itches or that it smarts ; that it contains a clear fluid 
or pus in its apex. We do not know why one pimple itches, 
or why another smarts. In the case of the nervous lesion, 
we know, for example, that it is characterized by convul- 
sions, paralysis of sensation, or perhaps of motion. We may 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. II 

surmise, but certainly far oftener we do not know, the cause 
that is the essential pathological state or process at the root 
of those symptoms, sufficiently well to utilize it for clinical 
purposes. 

That which yields to us curative indications must be of a 
much more positive kind. 

We consider only the purpose for which these positive 
data are to be collected. This purpose is to build upon 
them as a foundation those therapeutical measures which 
shall lead to a safe and radical cure of the case. Now, if 
this foundation is not one of solid, unquestionable facts in 
every part, every flaw will be an impediment, or, worse than 
that, a source of danger. 

Hence, if you know the cause of your pustule, — that is, 
why it is one, and not a bulla, or a mere nodule, — if you 
know why it is painful, why it torments by itching, or why it 
causes burning pain, — then you may proceed on positive 
information. If, on the other hand, you do not know these 
things, or have the slightest doubt concerning them, then 
your curative measures, directed at an unknown cause, must 
do harm. 

Therefore you will not find it unreasonable to allow your- 
selves to be guided by undoubted facts concerning which 
there can be no question. 

If errors are possible with regard .to diseases of no danger, 
how much greater must these errors be in a serious lesion 
like epilepsy ! Or do you know how and why bromide of 
potassium cures some cases of that kind? All conjectures 
concerning such curative results are trivial theories : the em- 
pirical fact that bromide cures some epileptics is all you have. 

We hold, therefore, that in our curative measures we are 
bound to be governed by that alone which we can know or 
discover positively ; and for this purpose, guided by this 
maxim, we proceed to collect and note carefully just such 



12 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

data or facts, from which we exclude rigidly all we are not 
sure of. To cultivate the faculty of gauging our knowledge, 
is a part of our business as homceopathists. This is the most 
difficult of all methods of self-discipline, but errors are pos- 
sible, even in the most rigid exclusion. 

We cultivate pathology as a branch of science, in common 
with all physicians, and there is no evidence that homceop- 
athists as a class, or as individuals, are not as good diagnos- 
ticians as other physicians. The only distinction is, that 
homceopathists are trained at the outset to separate patho- 
logical facts from theories, and to keep the two apart, each 
for a different purpose. 

The same principles apply to the methods by which homce- 
opathists study drugs as curative agents, and at this point 
I would show you in what light we look upon medicines. 
To us, medicines are not medicines in the first place : they 
are simply drugs, regarding whose properties we form no 
opinion until they have been tried upon the living human 
and animal organism. Now, what does an unbiassed observer 
perceive when he either takes himself, or administers to some 
animal, a portion of some drug, or what is supposed to be a 
drug? He either discovers that it has no effect at all, that 
it is inert, and hence valueless, or he discovers that it makes 
him as also his test-animal sick. He tries other drugs 
in the same way, and finds that each, if not inert, causes 
him to feel sick in a different way. One drug produces 
a kind of gastritis ; another, cerebral disorders ; a third, a 
bronchial catarrh, — each drug always producing the same 
kind of disorder. 

How does the unbiassed observer reason from these prem- 
ises? He reasons that a drug (medicine) is a substance 
which disturbs normal health ; that it is a pathogenic agent, 
— not one, that, if taken by a healthy person, will make that 
person healthier. 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 1 3 

This is a view of the nature of medicines which you can- 
not escape : drugs are disease-producing agents ; to call 
them evacuants, deobstruents, alteratives, tonics, etc., will 
not help you out of the paradox ; because if you cure by a 
medicine, classify it as you will, that cure is in some manner 
accomplished by that same pathogenic power inherent in the 
medicine. This pathogenic power, under certain conditions, 
becomes a curative agency. 

Medicines cause sickness in the healthy : medicines also 
cure disease. This is a simple statement of the ground- 
work of homoeopathy divested of all accessory verbiage ; it 
expresses briefly, though fully, the chief axiom of our School 
(simi/ia similibus curantur) ; and we believe, that, though 
it should not be held as the only principle in medicine, it is 
one, perhaps, of many principles, but yet one of exceedingly 
far-reaching value ; and we furthermore hold, that no School 
can, in justice, call itself "regular " while it excludes from 
among its methods and principles this one practical element. 

By nature, drugs are crude substances, each of which, if 
brought in contact with, or introduced into, the human body, 
produces a disturbing, hurtful effect. This effect varies 
according to the activity of the drug, from a slight indis- 
position, like that from a moderate dose of chamomile, to 
instantaneous death, like that from prussic acid, in drop 
doses, applied to the tongue of a rabbit. 

We recognize that each drug generally possesses some 
predominant effect : one drug may chiefly produce purging • 
the principal effect of another may be emesis ; that of a 
third, to produce sleep. We recognize that a number of 
other drugs are remarkable, chiefly from their power to affect 
the general health with less pronounced local effects (alter- 
atives and tonics) ; but we also recognize the fact, that be- 
sides these prominent local or general effects according to 
which drugs are classified, such drugs are capable of produ- 



14 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

cing a great variety of other effects, which are generally 
entirely ignored in your text-books on materia medica. For 
instance : a drug produces catharsis, but also loss of appe- 
tite, a yellow-coated tongue, and much thirst for cold water. 
Another cathartic produces nausea, a red tongue, but thirst 
for cold drink is not especially noticeable among its clearly 
marked effects upon the human organism. Now, these 
symptoms, or distinguishing features, have a value in the 
estimation of a homceopathist. He proposes to utilize them. 
But, having once observed that the range of the action of a 
drug is generally not limited to one organ or region, he also 
proposes to see just how far its effect will extend, and what 
it will do if fairly and thoroughly tested. 

In this process of testing or " proving " drugs for their 
effects, it is his purpose to know only what they positively 
and actually will do ; and he proposes to exclude as rigidly 
as possible every thing of a theoretical or a doubtful kind. 
For instance : one drug may produce sopor ; another may 
produce spasms ; both may be explained by their paralyzing 
effect upon the same nerve-centres. But what is the essen- 
tial nature of paralysis or soporific somnolence, is a matter 
of theory ; still more so the difference between somnolence 
and spasm, both of which are brought about by the same 
drug (belladonna), or each effect by two different and antag- 
onistic drugs. 

Here the homceopathist adheres to and utilizes the fact 
that drugs produce either sopor, or spasms, or paralysis, 
leaving hypothetical or theoretical discrepancies carefully out 
of his therapeutic measures. 

Testing drugs, then, for their true and unequivocal effects, 
is what is known in homoeopathy as "proving." In collecting 
facts, voluntary and accidental cases of poisoning are used. 
These roughly block out the effects of the drug. The finer 
details are then filled in by voluntary provings with safe 
doses. 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 1 5 

If errors and extravagances have crept in to render effects 
uncertain, it is not the fault of the principle involved, but of 
the methods employed. Too large doses, for instance, yield 
only coarse effects ; doses which are too small will produce 
none, or, as in apprehensive provers, multitudinous imagi- 
nary " symptoms." 

Now, having attained to a positive knowledge of disease 
manifestations and of drug effects, the question arises, What 
use can be made of these two branches of knowledge ? As 
yet, I have regarded the knowledge of disease as wholly iso- 
lated from, and as bearing no practical relation to, our knowl- 
edge of drug-effects obtained by experiment. The element 
which is capable of converting a drug into a medicine awaits 
our consideration. 

This element, we think, is found in a simple formula (the 
rule or law of cure), which says that medicines cure diseased 
conditions whose symptoms, or actually perceptible manifes- 
tations, are similar to — that is, closely resemble — those 
which medicines produce when tried upon the healthy organ- 
ism. Medicines cause sickness in the healthy : they also 
cure disease. 

How this formula was found and adopted would be an 
interesting topic, but too long. It must suffice to assert that 
it has been observed by analogy throughout the historical 
course of medicine. It was found by many empirically, but 
definitely pointed out by Hahnemann. I would gladly enu- 
merate sources from which knowledge of this formula is 
derived, but brevity obliges me to point out to you that this 
formula of similars is generally recognized in every actual 
cure clearly resulting from a single drug, wherever reported. 

If you will take the trouble to acquaint yourselves with 
the effects of such drugs as belladonna or its alkaloid atro- 
pia, nux vomica or its alkaloid strychnia, with arsenic, cop- 
per, and any drug you please ; and if you will then compare 



1 6 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

the manifestations of the cases cured, with the manifesta- 
tions or symptoms capable of being produced by the re- 
ported curative agent, — you will often be astonished by the 
similitude existing between them, and you will understand 
what is meant by similar. 

In a broad and general way, I will assert here, that the 
disorders in the cure of which most heroic well-known medi- 
cines are used by the alloeopathic school, are unequivocally 
of the kind which these heroic drugs are able to produce 
by themselves. Comparisons are easily made in any text- 
book, such as that of Bartholow. 

The answer to your first question, though long, would be 
very incomplete did I not add two other axioms of the 
homoeopathic school. 

One is, that as each drug has been tested singly, and un- 
mixed with any thing else which could modify its effect, so 
each drug should be administered singly as a remedy in dis- 
ease. The uncertainty of mixed drugs, and the safety of 
the patient, render this precaution necessary. 

Lastly, each drug, when used as a medicine under the 
formula of similars, should be given in doses just large 
enough to have the desired effect. On this there is no dif- 
ference among homoeopathic physicians, and I doubt if 
you will object to the way in which it is formulated here. 
But you have heard of dilutions and potencies, high and 
low; and you are puzzled and in doubt, if not entirely 
estranged, by much that is implied under the much-abused 
word "infinitesimal," more particularly that you are aware 
that homoeopaths differ among themselves when they en- 
deavor to make clear their position with regard to the' dose. 

As a matter of fact, some hold that very high reduction 
or rarification of medicinal substances is necessary and prac- 
ticable. They do not admit that there exists any limit to 
the divisibility of medicinal or other matter, and claim that 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATH Y. 1 7 

their clinical results uphold them in this. Others, and evi- 
dently a very large majority, have always inclined to a more 
material view and practice in the use of drugs ; most of 
them employing them in appreciable quantities, but still in 
quantities far short of the allceopathic dosage. They admit 
that science points clearly to a limit of divisibility, and hold 
that efficacy, or at least perceptible effect, ceases even be- 
fore the limit of divisibility is reached ; but they also admit 
that the practical, actually curative limit is not to be deter- 
mined by the clinical test alone, as the extremists do. 

For our purposes this evening, it would appear commend- 
able to fall back on the proposition, as first stated, that 
homoeopathy requires only as much medicine as will do the 
work required, or as much as will insure the utmost safety 
in the art of prescribing drugs, in preference to the tradi- 
tional maxim of augmenting doses to the verge of what the 
patient can endure. 

Such are the chief doctrines of homoeopathy, stated as 
fully as time and space will permit. Such statements are 
not exhaustive, but, excepting imperfections of diction, they 
are truthful. We may safely call them doctrines, but not 
dogmas. To elevate them to such a position would deprive 
them of the qualities of practical rules. Homoeopathy is 
nothing if not practical. 

If time and experience should show that homoeopathy, in 
its simplest form as described, should not be a method or 
system of such universal scope as to preclude other methods 
or systems, still you may safely regard it as a method among 
other methods of treating the sick by medicines. Varying 
methods of testing and prescribing drugs as medicines 
should not be confounded with unvarying principles. These 
may be correct and acceptable in the abstract, while their 
methods of application in real practice may teem with obsta- 
cles and difficulties, leading to questions and disputes inter- 



1 8 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

minable ; but divested of extremes, and holding to the pur- 
pose of retaining the knowable and excluding the unknown 
or doubtful factors, we aim to be reasonable, and, above all, 
practical. 

2. How is the homceopathy of to-day related to that taught 
by Hahnemann ? Jf any change, what is the reason for it? 

The above, though brief and incomplete, is intended as a 
sketch of homceopathy of Hahnemann, stated in such a way 
that I hope it represents the groundwork of the opinion of 
all practitioners of that school. The doctrines are the same 
to-day as they were at Hahnemann's time ; that is, the for- 
mula of similars, the proving of drugs, the use of single 
simple remedies in small doses. Such, indeed, was Hahne- 
mann's homceopathy in its simplest and most practical form. 
In this form it would probably have encountered very little 
opposition ; but certain changes and additions propounded 
and enforced by Hahnemann himself heightened the oppo- 
sition to his system, and also called forth a division in the 
school itself. Briefly stated, this was due to a gradually in- 
creasing tendency to extremes in the diminution of the dose, 
and to the introduction of the so-called "psora theory." 
These tendencies and complications of a simple and practi- 
cal method may be said to have taken shape and to have 
developed from 1810 to 1828, since which time two parties 
became distinctly discernible, — the one clinging with zeal- 
otism to the words of the master ; the other following a 
more or less conservative course (more especially with re- 
gard to dosage), rejecting extremes, and modifying or disre- 
garding altogether the " psora theory." This was introduced 
by Hahnemann as an explanation of the incurability of cer- 
tain inveterate hereditary types of disease, for the cure of 
which he introduced a distinct class of medicines known as 
"anti-psorics," published in 1828 and subsequently. 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 19 

While the objections are strong which are directed against 
the theory of one class of chronic diseases supposed to ori- 
ginate from suppressed itch, these objections are less valid 
when applied to chronic disorders following contagious 
gonorrhoea, and they vanish when applied to the chronic 
forms of syphilis. Nor was the proposition to adopt certain 
classes of remedies to these classes of disease entirely to be 
rejected. So much for historical events and doctrines. 
Although they led to differences of opinion among homoe- 
opathists, they did not lead to an actual rupture. To-day 
there is still a number of physicians who hold literally to the 
above-named doctrines ; but the greater number have aban- 
doned them, and maintain and adhere to the simple practical 
rules I have named. 

3. What statistics are there to show that homoeopathy is 
the most successful method of treating disease in general, or 
any particular disease ? 

Though these statistics are not as comprehensive as they 
should be, they are too voluminous to give you more than a 
brief sketch of them, omitting all details. Dr. von Grauvogl, 
a military physician of high rank in the Bavarian army, in 
his text-book of homoeopathy, quotes the following statistical 
data from Dr. Rosenberg's " Progress of Medical Science," 
etc. (Leipzig, 1843, published by Shumann), giving for brev- 
ity's sake only the final figures, which I must abbreviate 
still more. 

Trials with homoeopathic treatment were made at Tulezyn 
in Podolia by Dr. Herrmann at command of the Emperor 
of Russia in 1829. These lasted an hundred days. There 
were received 165 patients: cured, 141 j died, 6; remain- 
ing, 18. Mortality, 3.64%. 

Trials of homoeopathic treatment were made under the 
same order in the infantry hospital at St. Petersburg. i8f-§-% 



20 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

were treated; in all, 409 patients. Of these there were 
cured 370; improved, 7; uncured, 4; died, 16; remained, 
12. Mortality, 3.91%. 

In the cholera hospital, under homoeopathic direction, at 
Munich, the tabulated report shows that from Dec. 13, 1836, 
to the end of November, 1837, 242 patients were received : 
cured, 223 ; improved, 13 ; died, 6. Mortality, 2.48%. 

The tabulated report of the homoeopathic infirmary at 
Giinz shows that from 1833 to 1841 there were 738 patients : 
cured, 666 ; improved, 10 ; not cured, 5 ; died, 29 ; brought 
in moribund, 17; remaining, n. Mortality, 3.92%. 

The tabulated report of the homoeopathic infirmary at 
Gyongyos, from 1838 to 1841, shows 271 patients: cured, 
219 ; improved, 14 ; uncured, 7 ; died, n ; brought in mori- 
bund, 15 ; remaining, 5. Mortality, 4.06%. 

The report of the homoeopathic hospital at Vienna, from 
1832 to 1841, enumerates 5,161 patients: cured, 4,710; 
uncured, 89; died, 267 ; brought in moribund, 34; remain- 
ing, 61. Mortality, 5.02%. 

At the homoeopathic infirmary at Leipzig, from 1833 to 
1841, there were 4,665 patients: cured, 3,984; improved, 
297; uncured, 127; died, 157; brought in moribund, 31; 
remaining, 69. Mortality, 3.57%. 

The average mortality of these hospitals would accord- 
ingly be 4.22%. 

The tabulated reports of various non-homoeopathic hos- 
pitals should here follow by way of comparison. 

At the Marine Hospital at St. Petersburg, in 1837, there 
were received 2,261 patients: died, 773; remaining, 322. 
Mortality, 23.03%. 

At the Allerheiligen Hospital at Breslau, in 1833, there 
were 2,443 patients: cured, 1,701; died, 409; improved, 
105; uncured, 60; remaining, 168. Mortality, 16.74%. 

At the Charite at Berlin, during eight years, the highest 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 21 

death-rate was 13.99% : tne l° west i n x 839, when 10,616 
patients were treated, was 9.91%. 

Then follows the death-rate at the St. Jacob's Hospital at 
Leipzig, 10.33%. 

In Allgemeine Krankenhaus at Vienna, in 1838, the death- 
rate was 12.73%. 

This yields an average of 12.01% under allceopathic 
treatment. 

An interesting statistical account is to be found in Dietl, 
Der Aderlass in der Lungenentziindung (" Venesection in 
Pneumonia"), published in 1849, from which it appears 
that a mortality of 20% and 30% can be reduced to 7% 
and 9% by omitting antiphlogistics and tartar emetic. 

The reasons which induced Dietl to make this trial of 
treating pneumonia strictly on the expectant plan, were the 
results obtained by Drs. Fleischmann, Eidherr, Wurmb, and 
Casper, in Gumpendorff and Leopoldstadt homoeopathic hos- 
pitals. In the homoeopathic section of the Leopoldstadt 
hospital/ 92 cases of pneumonia were received during the 
years 1850-52. The average annual mortality among the 
cases treated in the hospital during nine successive years, as 
given in manuscript by Dr. Eidherr, was 7.2%. 

Another report, extending over the years 1859-66, gives 
a mortality of 5.85% and of 9.57% under homoeopathic 
treatment, and of 12.5% in the allceopathic section of the 
Leopoldstadt hospital. Those who will examine the figures 
in the original reports will observe a difference in favor of 
homoeopathic treatment over expectant treatment. 

This very imperfect sketch is simply intended to show 
that statistical material is not wanting, nor is it exhausted by 
these notes. It has increased greatly in the last twenty 
years, through the increase of homoeopathic hospitals and 
dispensaries in all countries. 

1 On the Present State of Therapeutics, etc. By James Rogers, M.D. London: 

Churchill, 1870. 



22 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

The last comparative statistics were those of the yellow 
fever commission appointed by the American Institute of 
Homoeopathy in 1879. r From this- report, arranged chiefly 
by the chairman of the commission, Dr. William H. Hol- 
combe of New Orleans, whose conscientiousness and 
reliability are beyond question, it appears that at various 
localities the mortality of accurately reported cases under 
homoeopathic treatment amounted to from 4% to 8%, in 
one instance (Chattanooga) to 36.4% ; while the mortality 
under non-homoeopathic treatment, from the most reliable 
sources obtainable, ranged from about 10% to 45% (Chat- 
tanooga). The author concludes his report as follows: 
" Notwithstanding the possible fallacies of the numerical 
method, and the possible errors of medical reports, and 
although some alloeopathic physicians may have made ex- 
ceptionally excellent reports, and some homoeopathic phy- 
sicians exceptionally poor records, still, surveying the matter 
on a large scale, in different places and at different times, the 
work of many physicians and the treatment of thousands of 
cases, we are compelled to believe that the homoeopathic 
method is uniformly more successful than the method of the 
old school." 

4. In what countries, and in what parts of them, is 
homoeopathy most practised ? 

There is no doubt that the United States of America can 
claim a larger number of homoeopathic practitioners than 
any other country. We have here, according to the report 
in The Transactions of the American Institute of Homoe- 
opathy for 1884, no less than 23 general homoeopathic 
hospitals, 31 special hospitals, and 49 free dispensaries, 15 

1 Special Report of the Homoeopathic Yellow Fever Commission, ordered by the 
American Institute of Homoeopathy for Presentation to Congress, 1879. New Or- 
leans, La. 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 23 

colleges and 4 special schools, no less than 19 journals 
and 102 societies, with no less than 6,000 practitioners of 
homoeopathy. 

The practice in other countries is represented by a smaller 
number of physicians in proportion to the patronage seeking 
them. Thus in Germany, exclusive of Austria and Switzer- 
land, there were, in 1876, about 264 homoeopathic practi- 
tioners, with 14 hospitals and public dispensaries. 

In Austria there are about 177 homoeopathists, with 8 
hospitals containing 738 beds (this does not include a very 
large number of homoeopathists of Hungary, and a number 
of hospitals and a college at Budapest). 

In France there are now about 350 homoeopathic physi- 
cians, 3 homoeopathic hospitals, and 8 dispensaries, 5 of 
which are in Paris. 

In England there are upward of 400 homoeopathic physi- 
cians, and 8 hospitals and dispensaries, besides a number of 
general and local societies. 

These numbers are not so insignificant as they would 
seem, because they do not include the homoeopathic prac- 
tice as represented by physicians, societies, and hospitals in 
other European countries (such as Spain, Italy, Russia, Den- 
mark, Holland, and Belgium), whose quota, if summed up, 
would exhibit, if not a formidable, still a very respectable, 
array of men and institutions. To those who are at all inter- 
ested in the history and statistics of homoeopathy, I would 
earnestly recommend for perusal volume II. of " The Trans- 
actions of the American Institute of Homoeopathy of 1876," 
" The Transactions of the International Homoeopathic Con- 
vention held in London in 1881," and "The Rise of, and 
Opposition to, Homoeopathy," by Dr. Wilhelm Ameke (Ber- 
lin : Otto Janke, 1884). Even the least impartial of readers 
must admit that the difficulties with which homoeopathy had 
to contend were equal to any experienced by struggling sects 



24 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

in the. entire history of the world. If these persecutions 
and oppressions were less severe than the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion, it was not for want of good will on the part of the 
opponents. There was not an existing power of law, nor 
power of despotic government, that was not brought to bear 
on the new system of medicine. If laws were wanting, they 
were easily made. 

It is easy to speak of great medical schools endowed cen- 
turies ago, whose wealth now amounts to countless millions ; 
it is easy to mention hundreds of enormous hospitals endowed 
by, and supported from, the coffers of rich States, — and then 
to point to the struggling little schools and hospitals depend- 
ent exclusively on private charities. Give them liberty as 
we have it here, and they will grow and do good, as is and 
will be proved by the wise legislation of many of our States. 
Things move more slowly there than here. It is possible 
there to keep down a new school, but it is as impossible 
there as it is here to obliterate it. Perhaps, after all, it is not 
safe to judge of a method of medical or any other practice, 
either by the number of its professional or lay adherents, but 
rather by its principles and their results in practice. 

Let us pass to the next question. 

5. Wliat doctrines of the regular school are most objected 
to by homosopathists ? 

The statement that homoeopathy, if not practical, is noth- 
ing, may have justly surprised you, as it may imply that 
allceopathy is not practical. Allow me as briefly as possible 
to illustrate our position, which is to heal the sick entirely, 
quickly, and agreeably, by means of medicines; that is to 
say, homoeopathy, with its formula of similars, refers exclu- 
sively to the use of medicinal substances in disease. We 
aim to get at the working-powers of medicines in the most 
practical manner, and believe, that compared with our prin- 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 25 

ciples, reduced to methods of getting at the practical forces 
of actually healing by means of medicine, the allceopathic 
school is less practical. 

We hold that the methods employed within the allceo- 
pathic school, of obtaining knowledge of drugs, are not prac- 
tical ; because the methods of obtaining such knowledge, 
though often leading to intricate though plausible results, 
these results involve an hypothesis which requires a theory 
for its support. Take, for instance, familiar examples of 
atropia, morphia, strychnia, eserine. If these substances 
are to be used for the actual purpose of healing by virtue of 
the reasons of their physiological effects, very few curative, 
or even palliative, results could be recorded. You would 
have to know the precise difference between, e.g., a stimulat- 
ing, an inhibitory, a paralyzing effect, in Order to apply these 
effects to a given case. Such differences are not definable. 
. Then consider also, that, even if it were within human 
ability to differentiate these hypotheses and theories regard- 
ing drugs with exactitude, it would be impossible to know, 
in any case of disease, which of those physiological effects 
are to be employed. If an hypothesis with a plausible theory 
of the action of a given drug is difficult to establish, it is 
vastly more so with regard to a disease. Homceopathists 
know that physicians, when called to the bedside of patients, 
have no time to ponder on such hypotheses and their the- 
ories : they must act quickly, .and at the same time safely, in 
the work of curing. Theorizing would not be safe ; neither 
would it lead to curative results to reduce hypotheses and 
theories to dogmatic rules and routine. There is no choice 
for the conscientious allceopathic physician but to apply 
strictly theoretical knowledge, and none for the less learned 
but to resort to thoughtless routine in the application of hy- 
potheses reduced to dogmatic rules, or, at best, empirical 
rules regardless of any hypothesis and theory. 



26 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

Homoeopathists object to this as a dangerous waste of 
time at the bedside, or as unsafe routine and empiricism. 

Homceopathists seek a shorter and safer way, and strive 
to avoid delay. But they acknowledge, at the same time, 
that the " regular school" is really practical only whenever 
it is truly empii'ical. Whenever experience, accidentally or 
methodically obtained, points the way to an actual cure, 
there we meet on more common ground, for there hypothesis 
and theory become matters of less than secondary impor- 
tance. Belladonna dilates the pupil, eserine contracts it; 
morphia produces. freedom from pain, and causes sleep; 
quinia breaks up paroxysms of intermittent fever, and so 
on. But here there is no application of these drugs accord- 
ing to hypothetical or theoretical reasons, but according to 
plain, well-known properties of drugs regardless of their 
reasons. 

We think traditional methods of studying disease and 
drug effects unavailable for pj-esent needs. We desire some 
time to know the reason of a drug effect and of a disease 
effect, but the exigencies of hourly needs will not allow it. 
We strive to find a shorter road ; that is, to take into account 
only what we can perceive clearly. In daily practice we 
think it unpractical to make these positively observed and 
easily observable facts subordinate to theoretical or even 
hypothetical data. ■ 

Next to the methods of your school of investigating drug 
and disease effects, the homceopathist finds it advisable to 
avoid polypharmacy in all its forms. While a reasonable 
combination of compatible synergistic drugs may be desir- 
able and practical, the homceopathist is aware, that, in the 
greatest number of instances of common " regular " practice, 
very little attention is paid to the kinds of substances com- 
bined or mixed ; and he thinks, moreover, that drugs are 
not sufficiently well known by either school to warrant a 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 2/ 

combination of several, or to anticipate a favorable result 
from such combination. The homceopathist would regard 
such polypharmacy, not so much as an indication of precise 
knowledge, but rather as one of uncertainty. Regarding it 
simply as a practical question, the homceopathist would fear 
to lose time by compounds of drugs concerning each of 
which much is conjectured and comparatively little known, 
while he tries to gain time by one simple remedy whose 
positive effects are well known. 

The homceopathist, furthermore, objects to excess of dos- 
age, as which he regards that of the " regular " school. He 
clings to the idea that it is less practical, because less safe 
and less certain, to give in a certain case as much as the 
system will endure, than to give much less than that, or, as 
he calls it, just sufficient to effect a cure ; for he dreads any 
medicinal complications of the case. He is aware, that, 
while a liberal exhibition of drugs, such as opium and quinia 
compounded with various others, may take entire possession 
of the functions of the patient's organism, the drug effects 
often predominate over the disease symptoms to such a 
degree that it is impossible to distinguish one from the 
other ; he is unable to know whether to attribute the coated 
tongue, bad breath, mental torpor, uncertain pulse and tem- 
perature, to the disease, or to the drug substances taken in 
such cases. 

He considers the giving of medicines in doses up to 
toleration practically unadvisable, because of the delay, if 
not danger. He reasons thus : We may not always prescribe 
correctly ; indeed, we may often err ; hence we must possess 
some means of correcting errors which the best physician 
cannot help committing. It is more difficult to correct 
errors resulting from polypharmacy and large doses, than to 
commit them ; hence he will employ single remedies which 
he can control more easily. 



28 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

The homoeopathist, furthermore, thinks it a disadvantage to 
push the dose to the verge of tolerance, because this method 
precludes the use of the most potent drugs, like arsenic, 
phosphorus, strychnia, atropia, and a host of others, which, 
by a simple mode of reduction, can be rendered more cura- 
tive, and safer, in the hands of even a nurse, than as usually 
prescribed by non-homceopathists. 

6. Does the homoeopath ever feel justified in using rem- 
edies after the method of the regular school? 

The homoeopathist holds, or should hold, to the idea that 
his calling as a physician demands of him to be ready and 
able to employ those means of which he knows with reason- 
able certainty that they will serve his purpose best ; that is, 
to restore his patient's health. 

Whenever the "regular school" is truly empirical, and 
■thus gives us good sound practical facts in the form of results 
which we cannot ignore, we are bound to use such results 
for the benefit of our patients. We are practical men ; we 
reject nothing that is truly useful, and are free to admit that 
such practical facts may here and there fill up considerable 
gaps in the therapeutic use of our own materia medica. 

As a matter of right, a homoeopath should reserve unto 
himself the use of remedies according to other methods ; 
for he always sees with satisfaction, and encourages, the em- 
ployment of homoeopathic remedies on the part of " regu- 
lar " physicians. 

Those homoeopaths who would raise the cry of traitor or 
heretic in such a case, render the conversion of the obdu- 
rate regular school impossible. But the occasional use of 
alloeopathic medicines has been met by the " regular school " 
with the argument that homoeopaths — using other than 
strictly homoeopathic remedies — are guilty of inconsistency 
and wrong-doing. Such objection^ belong in the same 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 29 

category with those of the dogmatic minority of homoeo- 
paths. It is here that extremes meet, and display their ab- 
surdities. 

To say that a homoeopath should not use allceopathic 
means of treatment, or that an allceopath should on no ac- 
count use a homoeopathic remedy, is as absurd as to say that 
a blacksmith must on no account use a watchmaker's file or 
drill, or to say that a carpenter must never, on pain of the 
everlasting displeasure of the fraternity of carpenters, use a 
carver's graver. The real position of homceopathists is, that 
they should conscientiously endeavor to make allceopathic 
therapeutics superfluous by demonstrating the superiority of 
their own. 

7. Explain " similia similibus curantur." The election 
of the remedies is by the law of similars ; the curative ac- 
tion, by the law of opposites. 

As the above question rather assumes that an explanation 
will be given in accordance with the theory assumed, I will 
endeavor to answer it in that sense. It would not be diffi- 
cult, but too long for our purposes to-night, to compile a list 
of analogues regarding the action of similars, from the 
therapeutic uses of medicines, as recommended in every 
non-homoeopathic text-book of materia medica, which, like 
Bartholow's, deals with simple drug-effects. 

It is readily to be understood that the visible appreciable 
symptoms of a disease may resemble, or be similar to, the 
symptoms or signs produced by a drug, as far as language 
can express them ; but it is yet a matter not fully understood, 
what the true similitude covers. The answer to this would 
be largely theoretical ; therefore we prefer to adhere to sim- 
ple methods, as represented by the example ; e.g. that bella- 
donna dilates the pupil, causes vertigo, and confusion of 
mind, hence we give it as a medicine in cases presenting 



3<3 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

these symptoms ; but we do not stop then and there to 
decide the question, why or how it cures. 

It may and it may not be that the decision of the question 
of what constitutes similarity or opposites would enable us 
to proceed in our curative efforts with greater ease and cer- 
tainty. It is certainly desirable to institute the most exhaust- 
ive experimental researches in regard to the matter. As long 
as such researches are incomplete, or entirely wanting in both 
schools, conjecture cannot help us much. 

Still, it is not unreasonable to ask for some suggestions 
on the point : these are already contained in the question. 
Practically, therefore, we make use of our formula in order 
to find a medicine for a given group of symptoms of a dis- 
ease. If we succeed in establishing a greater or less degree 
of actual resemblance in a pathological and therapeutical 
sense, we often thus discover the remedy we need. 

Similitude, then, furnishes us with the remedy. Its cura- 
tive action, however, is not explained or made clear thereby ; 
nor is that of immediate importance, as we have gained 
our end. It is, however, very plausible, if not probable, 
to say that the simple medicine acted in the direction of 
the ever-present tendency in the organism to return to the 
normal state. This tendency to re-establish its equilib- 
rium of cell-life {vis medicatrix), being not always able to 
accomplish the return to the normal state unaided, may be 
assumed to have been aided or re-enforced in its efforts. 
But, after all, as there was something abnormal to be recov- 
ered from, or to be overcome or counteracted, in this sense 
the curative action may be said to have been antagonistic, 
although the outward similitude of medicinal to disease- 
effects had led to the finding of the medicine. 

It is very certain, however, that where a cure is the actual 
result of a single drug, this cannot be assumed to have re- 
sulted from a variety of principles of action, but that there 



LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 3 1 

is probably only one curative principle underlying cures 
resulting at least from single remedies, by whatever school 
administered. 

8. Does the homceopathist only use such drugs as have 
been proven to produce in the healthy man the sy?nptoms of 
the disease to be treated? How is he assured that the drug 
will produce the symptoms ? 

This very fair question, like previous ones, should be 
answered categorically. 

The homceopathist when strictly applying a remedy to a 
group of symptoms, always applies only those which result 
from provings. These provings are as correct as the results 
of any other form of experimental research ; like all such, 
they have various values ; hence, in our repertories and 
symptom-lists, you will usually find certain ones which are 
especially emphasized as having been frequently verified 
clinically; you will find others which have not been suffi- 
ciently verified, and marked accordingly ; and, lastly, you 
will find in practical handbooks a variety of symptoms which 
were not derived from proving, but which occurred in the 
course of actually cured cases. Some of these are of much 
practical value. Homceopathists would not reject them 
on that account ; hence they are retained in all practical 
guides, but they are excluded from books on " pure materia 
medica." This does not mean that all which is therein 
contained is absolutely free from error, but simply that 
its purpose and intention is to record only the result of 
provings. 

This answers the second part of your question, regarding 
the assurance that the drug will produce symptoms, or all the 
symptoms, to which it is applied. If we treat a group of 
symptoms which have not appeared in provings, but have a 
remedy which is known to have cured them, we readily 



32 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

make use of it, falling back on the time-honored empirical 
method which we enjoy in common with all practical men. 

Most homoeopathists assume, however, that, if a remedy- 
cures a group of symptoms which as yet have not been de- 
veloped by proving, it will, if more thoroughly tested, exhibit 
them. Till then, of course, we cannot be assured that it 
will. I should add, that in our provings we cannot produce 
typical diseases : persons cannot be expected to subject 
themselves to such a degree of danger. Still, there are very 
numerous instances in which such cases have resulted from 
medicines, although they were not voluntary tests, but mostly 
accidental or intentional cases of poisoning. Homoeopa- 
thists avail themselves of such sources without exception, 
for they serve to verify and to complete provings which have 
to be made with milder and safer quantities. 

9. I am i-equested to select two common diseases, and 
show how their ti-eatment is governed on homozopathic prin- 
ciples ; such as diphtheria, syphilis, and acute diffuse peri- 
tonitis. 

To illustrate the homoeopathic treatment of a case of 
peritonitis, called diffuse when it extends over a large por- 
tion of the serous membrane, we will assume that there is 
no doubt concerning the diagnosis ; that our patient is con- 
fined to his bed, evincing all the signs of severe illness and 
anguish from abdominal pains of more or less extensive peri- 
toneal inflammation. We are to exert our knowledge and 
skill not only to relieve temporary suffering, but to arrest the 
pathological process by homoeopathic medicines. 

You will hardly perceive the difference between this 
method and the traditional one of your school, unless, per- 
chance, you have carefully watched the treatment at your 
clinics. 

In proceeding to therapeutic measures, the homceopathist 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 33 

remembers that he, or rather medicine in general, possesses 
no specific for diffuse peritonitis. He calls to mind that this 
presents itself in a considerable variety of forms and phases, 
determined by its remote or its immediate cause, and again 
varied by the stages at which it may have arrived. He 
remembers that its remote cause may be an hereditary one 
of tuberculous or even syphilitic origin ; that its proximate 
cause may be cold, exposure, or trauma; and that this 
disease is rare in persons of sound constitution, and hence 
that the case before him is serious in its nature. 

While arriving at his diagnosis, he saves time by a double 
mental process ; for he at once retains in his memory the 
useful indications in the form of positively known data : 
tubercular parentage, alcoholism, exposure to wet, violent 
exertion, violent accident, etc. The moment these are 
stated, there runs in the homoeopathist's mind a parallel 
remembrance of remedial agents, perhaps six or eight in 
number. Of these he is easily reminded by his knowledge 
of the similitude of the indications of the present case to 
the pathogenetic effects of certain drugs. He holds these 
all in reserve for the present, and until he shall have familiar- 
ized himself with the details of the present state of the case. 
There must be nothing of haphazard or routine in the pre- 
scription, unless it is the routine of rapid thought and 
prompt decision. Thus he completes his record (aptly 
called by Germans Krankheitsbild, or " picture of the case ") . 
This, if carefully and correctly viewed, is different in each 
case, and the doctor must be prepared with different reme- 
dial agencies. 

Let us suppose that the visible tangible signs of an incipi- 
ent case are : rigors over back and arms on least exposure 
by uncovering ; they appeared suddenly in the evening ; the 
cheeks are hot and red, and then great general heat and 
thirst; there is an intense burning pain in the umbilical 



34 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

region, or any other point, wherever the inflammation started, 
with painfully sensitive abdomen. 

To the homceopathist such a set of symptoms would 
indicate aconitum napellus, one drop of the tincture, if you 
please, to each tablespoonful of water, administered each 
hour or two ; but most would prefer the third decimal dilu- 
tion given in the same form. 

To say that a case of peritonitis always presents itself in 
this way, would be a grave error. Supposing, then, that 
being called at another stage of the case we are likely to 
meet with another set of visible manifestations : the tender- 
ness on being touched is much more marked, even the con- 
tact of the coverlid is intolerable ; the pains otherwise are 
rather cramplike and paroxysmal, or piercing, increased by 
slight motion, causing profuse perspiration. Under such cir- 
cumstances, the homoeopathic remedy would be minute but 
dilute and repeated doses of Bryonia alba, more particularly 
since ample clinical experience points to the almost unri- 
valled efficacy of this medicine in serous inflammations. 

Let the case be one of traumatic origin, where the pains 
are not burning, like those of the first instance, neither 
pricking nor piercing, like those of the second, but charac- 
terized by persistent soreness, or bruised and crushed sen- 
sation ; then a7-nica montana would be at once administered 
by us. 

Belladonna, rhus toxicodendron, arsenicum, each has 
its special indications ; and given an airy apartment, cool, 
cleanly applications to the abdomen, cool water ad libitum, 
and our patient will recover speedily in all cases where 
destructive pathological changes have not taken place ; and 
those who have observed and compared the results of this 
treatment with those in which alcohol was substituted for 
water, turpentine for cool, cleanly compresses, where ano- 
dyne doses of opium or morphia were used to annul the 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 35 

pain, will be most favorably impressed by the simple, prac- 
tical method of the homoeopathist. 

The treatment of diphtheria, though offering fewer chances 
of success on account of the terrible mortality resulting from 
its invasion, is nevertheless determined by the simple rule 
governing the selection of remedies. Having before us a 
case of this kind, we, as homceopathists, call to mind that 
we have no remedies for diagnostic names, but that we 
should search for a remedv adapted to the peculiarities of 
the prominent symptoms immediately present. Supposing 
these to be, great redness of the fauces, with difficult deglu- 
tition ; the redness most marked in the lower part of the 
pharynx, which is highly vascular ; we notice a white opales- 
cent membrane, like the superficial mucous patches of syph- 
ilis, on the pillars of the soft palate and on the tonsils, 
together with swelling of the parotids and submaxillary 
glands. In this case our choice would be, most probably, 
mercurius cyanatus, known to us not only on account of 
its very close resemblance in effect to those symptoms, but 
also on account of considerable actual success following its 
use. 

The medicine may best be given in solution of one of its 
potencies, every half-hour, or at intervals of several hours. 
You will find a very exhaustive report of the treatment of 
this disease, translated from the German, in the very last 
number of the " British Journal of Homoeopathy." Now, 
this does not end the variety of phenomena which the throat 
alone may present, each of which may call for another 
remedy. 

Suppose the affection had taken the dreaded form known 
as diphtheritic croup, with wheezing or sawing respiration ; 
dry, hacking cough, with such distress that the patient, per- 
haps a child, grasps its throat with its hand ; the cough 
causes much soreness of the larynx, and the voice is hoarse 



36 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

or nearly gone. In such a case iodine or spongia would 
serve the homoeopathist. 

Here are only two broad distinctions, which in practice 
are often varied by differences of a less striking kind, but 
which the homoeopathist regards as important. 

To try your patience further, an allusion to another 
remedy in another disease seems almost unavoidable. This 
is mercury as used in syphilis in its varied forms. None can 
read or observe the effects of mercurialization without won- 
dering why a medicine capable of producing effects so much 
like those of syphilis should be used by all physicians so 
universally in the treatment of that disease, and without rec- 
ognizing a strongly marked resemblance in its effects to the 
characteristics of syphilis. 

Among these effects there are the well-known mercurial 
sores, circular or oval, or with ragged, undermined edges, 
with its tendency to spread. At other times mercury pro- 
duces ulcers, with whitish-gray bases, bleeding easily, and 
exuding thin matter. 

The erythema caused by mercury, and the severe ulcera- 
tions following the coppery-red inflammations of the palate 
and pharynx, so carefully described and collated from all 
sources in our symptom-lists, bear out the assertion of the 
relation of mercury to syphilis by its similitude. 

Mercury does not produce syphilis, but its effects resem- 
ble it. We use it therefore, and, I may add, with much 
success. 

The doses in which these remedies are given, and their 
proper repetition, afford material for discussion among 
homoeopathists. Some insist upon what are called " high " 
attenuations, also called " potencies ; " others prefer a form 
of preparation in which medicinal substance is demonstrably 
present. All agree, however, that a medicine, in order to 
be effective, should be so prepared that a small quantity, 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 



37 



even an exceedingly minute fraction of a drop or grain, is 
made to occupy a large space, thus serving the purpose better 
than a substantial or larger dose. 

The other portions of this question may be, at least in 
part, comprised in the answers to the next question. 

10. In what way is morphia used? 

Morphia and opium are used by homceopathists precisely 
as any other medicinal substance is used by them ; that is, 
they apply its effects as known to them by provings, and 
cases of poisoning, to groups of symptoms resembling the 
symptoms of opium. Sleeplessness may thus be relieved by 
it, as well as soporific sleep ; certain forms of epileptic con- 
vulsions, as well as conditions of torpor, especially those of 
the intestinal nerve-plexuses resulting in habitual or tempo- 
rary constipation. 

Notable instances of this kind are not wanting. The 
symptomatic conditions determining the use of opium can 
easily be " read up " in any handbook. 

This is a direct answer to the question ; but as it may 
imply the question, " Do homceopathists ever use opium 
according to other principles and for other purposes?" it is 
but fair to say that they do exceptionally. 

A physician, although recognizing the principles and rules 
of homoeopathy, may find it right and proper, though rarely, 
to prescribe a larger dose of morphia for the sake of allaying 
pain, or of producing sleep. But, while he has a perfectly 
indisputable right to do so as a physician, he should not and 
will not avow that he is then acting homceopathically ; pre- 
cisely as a physician, using as his chief guide allceopathic 
principles, should not and will not avow that he is acting 
entirely allceopathically when he allays certain forms of in- 
testinal catarrh by small doses of rhubarb, castor-oil, or 
chamomile, or constipation by nux vomica (see Ringer's 
Text-Book). 



38 LECTURE ON HOMCEOPATHY. 

This virtually disposes of the next question propounded 
to me : — 

ii. Are not many powerful drugs used in as large doses 
as by the followers of other schools ? 

As a rule, homoeopathists employ much smaller doses 
than the traditional ones of alloeopathy. The very energetic 
substances, like phosphorus, arsenic, atropia, morphia, strych- 
nia, etc., are used most commonly, and by a majority, in 
what is called the first, second, third, etc., attenuation. 
Some homoeopathists use these substances in doses of the 
common pharmacopoeia. Although homoeopathy teaches 
the use of minute doses, it does not so much insist on the 
minute dose, as the highly diluted or expanded dose, because 
it has found to its satisfaction how to make a very little 
medicine go a great way. 

There are some homoeopathists and some allceopathists 
who have done much to confuse young men's minds by 
assuming an attitude as if the distinction between the schools 
rested exclusively on the dose. This is a great error. The 
doses used by physicians never did, and cannot, alone serve 
as an index of the principles underlying their method of 
using medicines. These can better be determined by the 
effects intended or actually obtained by any dose. For 
example : a quarter of a grain of morphia may release a 
patient from soporific sleep ; this would be homoeopathic 
action. The twenty-thousandth part of a grain of strychnia 
may cause the leg of a frog to jerk ; this is a simple toxic 
effect of a very minute dose. This instance illustrates my 
meaning, — that the dose does not determine the " pathy," 
and that one may be a homceopathist who uses compara- 
tively large doses, while another may be an alloeopathist, or 
"regular" physician, if you please, although he uses com- 
paratively very minute doses. 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 39 

As your questions are arranged, this leads me to the next, 

which asks : — ■ 

12. How is it possible to get any other than a mental 
effect from the administration of a ten-thousandth of a 
grain of a drug ? Is there any analogy in chemistry or 
physiology ? 

It is certainly possible to get something besides a mental 
effect from a ten-thousandth of a grain of a drug, especially 
if you require chemical and physiological analogies. You 
may not be told how it is possible, but simply that it is ; nor 
may you always get only mental effects, as you seem to 
anticipate. 

The simple fact that transcendently minute portions of 
matter may have and do have very plainly perceptible effects, 
is demonstrable by numerous instances. 

The ten-thousandth part of a grain of strychnia is very 
plainly perceptible to the taste. The thirty-thousandth is, 
according to Taylor {Med. yurispr.). 

We do not positively know on what the contagiousness of 
variola depends. We all believe that infectiousness is a con- 
dition without which the disease is not propagated ; and per- 
sons contract the disease without coming in contact. They 
may be far apart. Whatever brings it about must be at least 
as minute as the tubercle-bacillus, or its germ-spore. These 
are as minute, by actual measurement, as the minutest par- 
ticles to which, e.g., a metal can be reduced by any mechan- 
ical means. A grain of gold, e.g., is reducible to about 
forty-six thousand million particles. Each of these can be 
seen, and measured to be a two-thousandth of a millimetre 
in diameter ; hence a germ-spore of this size will weigh no 
more, but probably less, than a forty-six-thousand-millionth 
of a grain. You only asked for a ten-thousandth part of a 
grain. 



40 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

It is not intended to assert that a single particle of gold 
could have an effect like an organic germ-spore of the same 
size. But many such particles may have such an effect by 
judicious repetition. A drop of water falling on a granite 
rock produces no perceptible effect. Many millions of 
single drops excavate the rock. Hence the effect of one 
drop is a calculable fractional part of what has been effected 
by vast numbers of drops. 

The mephitis putorius on shore can be plainly perceived 
by the smell several miles out at sea, and produce a sensa- 
tion of nausea. The odor of orange-blossoms can be per- 
ceived a long distance out at sea. The one-thousandth part 
of a grain of strychnia, as Dr. Arnold of Heidelberg has 
shown, may produce tetanus in frogs. The same observer has 
noticed it repeatedly from one-millionth of a grain (ffygieia, 
vol. x. p. 56, quoted by Hirschel). Spallanzani fertilized a 
frog's egg with 2 9 84 "At5"oo P art °^ a g^ 11 of the seminal 
fluid of frogs. 

A better and more familiar example of the effect of 
extremely attenuated poison is afforded in this region by the 
common occurrence of erysipelatous inflammation by the 
mere exposure to the smoke of dry ivy roots and branches 
(rhus vernix and radicans). 

For further familiar illustrations, allow me to refer you to 
a collection of data contained in Hirschel's " Text-book of 
Homoeopathy." 

Your question as to mental effects resulting from the test- 
ing of too minute doses deserves no evasive answer. There 
are numerous instances offered by chemistry and physiology 
in which, as I have stated, other than mere mental effects 
are produced by even less than a ten-thousandth part of a 
grain of any substance. But homceopathists, far from deny- 
ing the possibility of recording mere mental or emotional 
effects while testing drugs, are using their best endeavors 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 



41 



to prevent this source of error, by accurate ana guarded 
methods of experiment, and by devising new and more reli- 
able means of experimentation. 

If you will call to mind that our experimental tests are 
not carried on with animals, but much oftener with the 
human subject, you will readily comprehend that testing of 
drugs is no mere pastime, but connected with some appre- 
hension of danger, if not danger itself. 

Having had considerable personal experience in drug 
testing or proving, I am in a position to assert that there is 
not one among my hearers who would consume a little bottle 
of innocent-looking pellets, and then avow that the sensa- 
tions which follow were only imaginary, although they might 
be. We are perfectly aware of this possibility, and therefore 
know how to avoid it. 

It is not in the nature of the system of homoeopathy to 
give rise to errors, but these arise simply from faults which are 
common to us all. The methods of experimentation among 
homoeopaths are no more liable to result in error than those 
of chemistry or physiology. 

Far from taking too little of a substance to be tested, 
the courage and perseverance of our provers challenge our 
admiration. Let those of you who do not shrink from cru- 
cial tests try one-fiftieth or one-hundredth grain doses of 
nitroglycerine, or one-third grain doses of Merck's curare, 
repeated at short intervals, and they will soon learn how we 
go to work to distinguish mere mental from real effects. 

I have nothing to say in defence of those who persistently 
ignore the limits of the presence of medicinal matter, and 
who give rise to endless disputes by their tendency to mys- 
ticism. 

To obtain detailed information on this subject, I trust 
that your sense of loyalty to the school of your choice will 
not deter you from reading the transactions of our state and 



42 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

national societies, as well as our periodical literature. This, 
to say the least, will afford you as many valuable suggestions 
as the never neglected, careful perusal and close study of 
the literature of your school yields us. 

13. A few books which clearly set forth the subject. 

Homoeopathy is a system of practice which admits of 
being stated and denned in all its essential features in a 
comparatively short treatise. We need another; and its 
publication only depends on some one who will furnish it. 

As you are aware, this system or method of practice, in 
the course of its yet uncompleted development, has given 
rise to various sects or parties ; hence one explanatory text- 
book would not suffice to represent the whole historical case. 
The following are commendable : — 

Hahnemann, The Organon of the Art of Healing (Phila- 
delphia : F. E. Boericke) ; also Rau, Organon (Leipzig : 
Ludwig Shumann, 1838) ; Dr. A. V. Grauvogl, Text-Book 
of Homoeopathy (Nuremberg: Friedr. Korn, 1866) ; Dr. B. 
Hirschel, Text- Book of Hoi?ioeopathy, or a Guide to its 
Study and Practice (Leipzig: Edw. Haynel, 1854) ; Dr. R. 
E. Dudgeon, Lectures, and Theory and Practice of Homoe- 
opathy (Manchester: H. Turner; London: Aylott & Co., 
1854) ; Dr. Richard Hughes, The Knowledge of the Physi- 
cian (Otis Clapp & Son, 18S4). 

We have now arrived at the last, but not the least, of the 
questions of your secretary's list : — 

14. Upon what grounds would you advise a young grad- 
uate to practise in accordance with homoeopathic principles ? 

Do not expect of me a sensational recital, embellished by 
rhetorical extravagances. As I have striven, in what I have 
said, to make simple and explicit statements, my reasons 
for the grounds for the practice of homoeopathy shall be 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 



43 



equally simple, and as concise as I am able to state them. 
Indeed, the reasons I can offer you will be but a repetition 
of the principal arguments embodied in previous statements. 

Excluding surgery and all surgical specialties, let it be 
remembered that homoeopathy applies exclusively to the 
internal use of medicines. 

It cannot fail to commend itself to your judgment, that 
the absolute safety of the patient under the use of drugs as 
medicines?, hould be a condition without which we are liable 
to fall into grave errors. Now, if homoeopathy includes such 
a safeguard among its foremost postulates, this should raise 
it above other modes of practice, which, while they do not 
disregard, do not lay as much stress upon it as homoeopathy, 
which actually elevates and develops this postulate with a 
system of practical rules. These rules are not difficult to 
comprehend, and are so easy in their actual application, that 
they render the entire practice of homoeopathy safe even in 
the hands of beginners. 

The safety and welfare of the sick are assured by a sys- 
tem which intends and strictly aims to arrive at, not only 
positive, but practically applicable and reliable, data concern- 
ing the action and effects of drugs. In principle this is cer- 
tainly acceptable. 

Hence homoeopathy seeks for and provides precautions 
for rendering unavoidable errors harmless in practice, as you 
will see. 

I have endeavored to explain to you how homoeopathy 
seeks also for positive data regarding disease, by accepting 
for bedside practice only what we can clearly and unmistak- 
ably perceive ; for instance, a cough occurring chiefly before 
midnight, with glairy, viscid expectoration, and burning pain 
in the trachea. Homoeopathy regards these data, but does 
not attempt to prescribe for the conjectural reasons for the 
glairy expectoration and the hour of aggravation. It seeks 



44 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

for a remedy which in its proved effects resembles those of 
the disease, and readily finds it. The choice between many 
competing remedies is not easy, but here skill and expe- 
rience come into play. 

You will say, " But now, if your symptoms of disease are 
doubtful, uncertain, and vague, and your provings also, what 
guards you against errors in common with our method of 
prescribing? " 

I answer that your question is fair. Errors in prescribing 
are unavoidable in any school, and this you will justly 
regard as a point of extreme importance and significance. 
Whoever claims to be able to prescribe the right medicine, 
simple or compound, at first or second sight, with precision, 
in a case of disease, is in error. We must be conscious of 
this always, without knowing how often we err. „ But the 
means of controlling error are afforded by homoeopathic 
practice : they are found in the use of simple remedies, in 
small but expanded doses. 

As for the rule of similars itself, I must define and express 
it as epigrammatically as I can. Much of its explanation 
lies in the definition of a medicine. The shortest definition 
you or I can make of it is, that a medicine is a substance 
which, if consumed by a well person, will make that well 
person sick. Now, if medicines ever cure diseases, they 
must do so by that same pathogenic force which each medi- 
cine possesses. Medicines cause morbid conditions ; medi- 
cines cure morbid conditions. This is homoeopathy in a 
nutshell. 

Instead of compounding several drugs in one recipe, 
homoeopathy prefers one at a time, because it takes into 
consideration the uncertainties of knowledge concerning 
one, and the multiplication of errors by compounding sev- 
eral drugs. Thus it avoids the unsafe increase of uncertain 
factors by reducing uncertainty to its smallest measure. 



LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 45 

It does not cease here in applying rules of precaution ; 
for homoeopathy does not only plead for single remedies, but 
lays great stress on the use of the least amount of medicine 
that will cure. It considers it unsafe, and hence unpractical, 
to push the dose to the extreme of toleration, getting, then, 
mostly pathogenic, but no curative effects. 

When a homoeopath sees medicinal effects, like sopor 
following opium, salivation after mercury, despondency and 
erythema after bromides, he considers that the disease he is 
treating has been augmented, and he prefers not to run such 
risks. The original case is enough for him ; he does not 
desire to complicate it for the sake of a temporary advantage. 

Hence, besides employing simple single medicines, he 
reduces their volume by the easiest method possible. That 
every one can learn this method of pharmacy in a little 
while, far from being a weakness, is a great advantage of the 
system. 

You will not raise any very serious objection to these 
principles dictated by a spirit no less humanitarian than it is 
practical ; that is, facility of application. 

It would encroach too much on your patience if I should 
describe in detail the methods and results of dilution, tritu- 
ration, and attenuation. Let it suffice for our present pur- 
pose, that homoeopathists are unanimous in advising smaller 
doses than any other school, and that they agree, also, that 
reasonable dilution or expansion more than counterbalances 
loss of medicinal substance. 

But, you will say, do your results plead for the efficacy of 
your system of simples, and attenuated doses applied under 
the formula of similars ? In answer to this question, I point 
to such statistical evidence as we possess ; not to the bold 
figures mentioned before, but to a closer study of their 
details. 

Even if you should put the most cautious construction 



46 LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 

upon those statistics and hospital reports, and if you should 
conclude that the much lower percentage of mortality under 
homoeopathic treatment, as compared with that of the older 
school, were due only to expectancy, and to the absence of 
medicine in homoeopathic preparations, you still find your- 
selves confronted with the fact that very few deaths occurred 
under homoeopathic treatment, as compared with the results 
of allceopathic medication. 

Now, whether homoeopathic preparations contain medi- 
cine or not, it must be urged, that, even if homoeopathy has 
nothing in its favor besides a very low mortality list, this 
would serve you as a sufficient argument in its favor. 

We cannot cure all, but we dare injure none. 

I must stop somewhere, and hope that I may at least have 
offered you some points worthy of your impartial considera- 
tion. Let me thank you most sincerely for the kind and 
close attention with which you have honored my remarks, 
which, I am sure, you have received in the friendly spirit in 
which they are offered. 



H159 83 















» ^ 



*• 'iTr^'* ^ ^ *'?rr«* ^ +* *.t? 












,* ... 






0* ,-"'•-. c 





C v ♦ 



4* • 



^0« 



*b$ 












,* 



<>#. ••T« # ^t> 






*• ^ A* * w fi !&'• "^ &" < 







• * • 



:,.\ 



v ^ 



''. .^^ >sa&i%** • 



* aV *x . 



9 ^V O 



* aV ^ . 









% 







W : 






C> •« • » * A 



*o 



>\.M."- 1 



<* ''TV.' ,0 




IB^%^:*3«fe%^ :J 



.0* .•"-'- *< 



V *•-"•'<♦«' 







o., *. . . » j\ 



<9* 









> 



*<fe .1 



w r 



^^ 






*. * 












^ v 



• -JO *. 



t ^ 'A 










.4* ,♦•!?•- **l 



**/^«* ^ 









** :£& ^* -SMS: % ^ 



•^L% ^c 



m 



MAR 83 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 










